Pops
#2
(02-28-2017, 05:50 AM)Weeded Wrote:  Original

I grew up poor,
played baseball without a glove,
I built my house
with Father with wood cut Maybe move "cut" to the next line and just leave "with Father with wood" to make a nice parallel structure in this line. 
from the oak next door.

Our backyard was a jungle
of essentials, apples to aloe
Mama could cook
long as the fruit hung low.

I grew up quick,
found work at a toy store, love the contrast between adults' work and children's play
fell in love even quicker, maybe move this line before L11; it just seems to make this stance sound better to me
six months and I quit.

Military bound after wedding vows, maybe change "bound" to a different word ("pledges", etc., or even "vows" again) to emphasize the connection between being tied to the military and tied to marriage
I learned I'm a genius I don't quite understand the implication of this line - is the speaker literally a genius or is he saying it sarcastically? If the former, mention it in earlier stanzas. If the latter, maybe make it "some genius" or something along that line to clarify the tone. 
that couldn't raise kids.

Car crash halfed my sight,
haunted by a lost son,
wife couldn't cope- antidepressants
leave her alone. What is the action here? Are you saying they don't work on her or that they allow her to live normally? What is the effect of her depression on the speaker?

Military don't care about you, While I like the voice implied by using the word "don't" instead of "doesn't", it doesn't really seem consistent with the mostly standard diction in the rest of the poem. If you'd like to maintain this, maybe you could work in some more phrases like this throughout. 
I learned on a transfer
to a job I couldn't do. Why can't the speaker do it? Skill or personal reasons? Maybe add one more line to clarify the cause and/or effects of this failure. 

Thirteen years half blind
struggling to find the way,
this house I built without Father
did nothing but deteriorate. Beautiful lines!

Today I left my wife
my kids, my life,
to try to see
what's behind the blind eye. 
The conclusion is interesting and definitely powerful, but I think you could benefit from adding one more stanza before the last one explaining the buildup to the speaker's decision to leave everything. Does he experience internal conflict over this? Is it a sudden decision or a slowly formed one? Overall, I really enjoyed the narrative of this poem and hope to read it with some revisions to clarify this.
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Messages In This Thread
Pops - by Weeded - 02-28-2017, 05:50 AM
RE: Pops - by Flos Campi - 02-28-2017, 06:10 AM
RE: Pops - by CRNDLSM - 02-28-2017, 12:26 PM
RE: Pops - by Weeded - 03-01-2017, 06:56 AM
RE: Pops - by nibbed - 03-01-2017, 09:59 AM
RE: Pops - by Teeky - 03-01-2017, 09:52 PM
RE: Pops - by Todd - 03-02-2017, 12:21 AM
RE: Pops - by Weeded - 03-02-2017, 11:26 AM



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